Closing the Gap: Minorities in Education
There are many competing views on exactly what it means to close the achievement gap in education. The primary question concerns what is being measured. Is it dropout rates? Is it graduation rates? Is it the difference in standardized test scores. Finally, and perhaps more important, who is being measured? Is the comparison between the wealthy and the needy, black and white, males and females? Various educators use different evaluations.
Black and Hispanic high school students, across the United States, drop out of school much more frequently than Asians or Whites. Despite recent improvements, this discouraging trend persists. More troubling perhaps, of those students who attend college, Blacks and Hispanics are only half as likely to graduate from college as compared to Whites. Furthermore, many of the minorities who graduate taken longer than 4 years to obtain a college degree. Therefore, the gap must be addressed very early in the educational process to ensure positive long term effects.
In sum, existing research suggests three critical steps to improve gaps in college enrollment rates among Blacks and Hispanics:
High educational aspirations: In order to close the achievement gap, more students must desire to attend college. Intervention on this front must start earlier than high school. High school graduates whose parents did not attend college tend to report lower educational aspirations than their peers as early as eighth grade. Low educational aspirations affect students’ curricular choices, as well as their selection of peer groups.
Strong academic preparation is the key. First, school districts must make high-school courses more rigorous to narrow the gap that the United States has with other industrialized nations. Ethnic and low-income minority students are the least likely to enroll in advanced placement, honors and college-preparatory curriculum. This effort should address the courses that all students take regardless of their socio-economic standing.
Financial support: Many low-income students simply cannot afford to go to college without scholarship support and reduced tuition options. However, despite the significant financial aid available, college “sticker prices” remain a barrier to first-generation students. Rising college costs coupled with flat or declining family incomes have created unmet financial needs – a college education can cost as much $50,000 per academic year.
Education levels the playing field. It breaks the shackles of poverty and uplifts the human spirit, thereby improving the lives of individuals, families and the overall society. Education has the ability to eradicate illiteracy, poverty, racism and crime; nothing else has that power, not even money. Therefore, every smart society must be committed to the education of all to ensure its preservation. If not, eventually, the crabs in the bucket will win.
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